Friday, October 30, 2015

According to the New York Times, in particular to its television critic James Poniewozik, the winners in Wednesday night’s CNBC
candidate debate were the GOP candidates and Fox News.

One recalls that Frank
Bruni praised the Fox moderators for doing an excellent job at the first
Republican presidential debate. To me this seemed like a fair assessment. Some
questioned whether Times writers would be as fair about their natural allies,
especially when their natural allies messed up. Keep in mind, the lead
questioner on Wednesday was Times contributor John Harwood.

Poniewozik opens by
comparing CNBC unfavorably with Fox News. That in itself is worth noting:

Back in
August, in the first Republican debate of the cycle, Fox News’s moderators
asked tough questions — much too tough, notably, for Donald J. Trump’s liking —
and held firm on the debate rules. CNBC seemed to be trying this approach, but
without the quickness and discipline to pull it off.

The moderators seemed to want to provoke a food fight among
the candidates. Instead, they set themselves up and lost. They should have
known that some of the candidates were former federal prosecutors. Ted Cruz was a champion debater and a prosecutor. Chris Christie was a federal prosecutor. You know that such people are very good in arguing on their feet. They were far brighter than their journalist adversaries. Yet, liberal journalists believe that they belong to an intellectual elite and believe that all Republicans are, by definition, dumb. For them the experience, coupled with the bad reviews, must have been very galling
indeed.

Poniewozik continues:

The
debate quickly became candidates vs. CNBC. The network lost in a rout.

The
moderators often seemed simultaneously aggressive and underprepared: a fatal
combination. Becky Quick asked Mr. Trump about having once called Marco Rubio
“Mark Zuckerberg’s personal senator” — referring to the founder of Facebook.
But when Mr. Trump denied it, Ms. Quick failed to recall that the quotation came from his
own website. Instead, she said “My apologies,” despite having gotten the
words right.

Ms.
Quick mentioned the source later, but the moment had passed and the impression
that Mr. Trump had won the exchange had been made. When you leave your homework
in your locker like that, the audience will not be offering makeup credit later.

As for John Harwood’s professionalism, Poniewozik derides
it:

And
co-moderator John Harwood (who also contributes to The New York Times) often
delivered his questions as if he were a candidate whose handlers had prepped
him with zingers. (To Mr. Trump: “Is this a comic-book version of a
presidential campaign?”)

You might believe that the Times was upset because the CNBC
debate made the Republicans look better than liberal journalists. But then
again, it has been known to defend the impossible before, so we are inclined to
give it, through its television critic, praise for a fair and balanced
appraisal.

The Times was hardly alone in comparing CNBC unfavorably
with Fox News. Lloyd Grove reports the views of former CNN Washington Bureau
Chief Frank Sesno:

“I
think the first Fox debate was excellent,” former CNN Washington bureau chief
Frank Sesno, director of George Washington University’s School of Media and
Public Affairs, told The Daily Beast. “But when Fox did the first debate, it
was a getting-to-know-you debate” for which every question—even the ones from
Megyn Kelly about which Donald Trump bitterly complained—was a fresh subject to
the candidates and the audience.

By
contrast, Sesno said, the CNBC debate was touted in advance as focusing on the
candidates’ competing ideas for strengthening the economy, creating jobs,
fixing federal entitlement programs, and other pocketbook issues.

Instead,
Sesno argued, the debate tended to focus on the moderators’ provocative,
personal, and, by some lights, insulting questions—and the candidates’
reprisals.

“I
think it was a great wasted opportunity,” Sesno said. “CNBC had an opportunity
to own a space that was unique, and they advertised it as such. They’re the
economy and markets channel, and they had an opportunity really to drive a
focus around a genuine debate over economic policy … And it didn’t happen.”

Sesno
continued: “The questions were utterly predictable. There were very few
follow-ups. There was little effort to generate an actual debate… Instead,
there was this rehash of totally legitimate questions about rack record, the
viability of candidacy—but all questions that have been asked before. The
opening question—‘What are your personal weaknesses?’—was a very clever
effort…but it had a thoroughly predictable result, and some candidates ignored
it completely. In a sense, it was wasted time…and a grownup debate about the
economic direction of our country didn’t happen.”

And Frank Rich offered a similar assessment in New York
Magazine. He called it a “disorganized amateur night.” He implies, to his
chagrin, that the CNBC moderators seemed to be setting up Fox
Business to host an enlightening debate a week from Tuesday:

The
lustiest cheers of the evening, some of them generated by Cruz, were for the
candidates’ attacks on “the media” in general and the debate moderators in
particular. CNBC surely did everything it could to prove the candidates’ case.
Without explanation, the debate was preceded by nearly 15 minutes of banter by
ill-informed and bombastic commentators, including the Trump ally (and aspiring
Senatorial candidate) Larry Kudlow. Among the questioners at the debate
itself were Jim Cramer, a poster
boy for the reckless excess and conflicts of interest that found their
apotheosis in the Wall Street crash of 2008, and Rick Santelli, whose 2009
on-air rant about American “losers” inspired the tea-party movement.
The whole event felt like a disorganized amateur night, and one can only
imagine Roger Ailes howling with delight at every wrong turn.